Make Friends with the Judge

Youth Dialogue Sermon                          1 Advent C      November 29, 2015

Jer. 33: 14-16     Psalm 50:1-   1 Thes. 3:9-13   Luke 21:25-31

Chike: In the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.  You may be seated.   Let me be the first to wish all of you a very Happy New Year!

Arinze:  What chew talkin’ about, Chike?   It is only November 29^th.

Chike: Sorry, Bro….but I guess you are not keeping up with the church calendar.  Today is the first Sunday of Advent and it is the first day of the new Christian Year.  I gotcha!

Caroline:  I hate to interrupt your sibling rivalry guys, but we have a sermon to preach.

Arinze: Well, maybe I’d like to avoid preaching today.

Caroline:  Why do want to avoid preaching today?

Arinze:  Well Father Phil is breathing a sigh of relief because we have to preach on the Gospel; we have to preach about gloom and doom.

Chike: What do you mean “gloom and doom?”

Arinze: Jesus said, “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

Caroline:  That sounds pretty threatening.  And we might be really discouraged if these were the only words of Jesus in the Gospels.

Chike: What might be some of some of the positive words of Jesus in the Gospels?

Caroline:  Jesus promised us eternal life, he promised us a new birth, he promised us the gift of the Holy Spirit and much, much more.

Arinze:  Why don’t we just have positive words of Jesus in the Gospels?  Why do we have to words of warning from Jesus?

Caroline:  As people we need lot of different kinds of motivational strategies.

Chike:  What do you mean?

Caroline:  Well, your Mom might say, “I will bake you a cake if you clean your bedroom.”  Or your Dad might say, “If you don’t clean your room, you will not get your allowance.”  Which would be the best strategy to get you to clean your room?

Chike:  I guess they both might work.

Arinze:  Or neither of them work and you end up poor without an allowance and without any cake.

Caroline:  Advent is often a season of warnings.  And we do not like warnings, even though I hate to admit that sometimes we won’t do so necessary things if we don’t fear bad consequences.

Chike:  So we can study hard to get A’s or we can study hard to keep from failing. 

Arinze:  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could always do good and right things without any threats, fear of punishment or warnings?

Caroline:  I guess it is called positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement.

Chike:  Mice in a maze can be trained to do things by offering them cheese or by giving them mild shocks.  Both can be training methods.  They learn by anticipating reward or punishment.

Arinze:  It is the same in sports as well.  What if the soccer coach just threw some soccer balls on the field and said “Okay, go out and learn how to play and I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

Chike:  You might have fun but you probably wouldn’t be ready to play a game.

Caroline:  Well, you know that they say, “No pain, no gain.”  Sometimes we have to have teachers, parents, and coaches train us so that we can be prepared to achieve good things in life.

Arinze:  So, my soccer coach will warn us if we don’t work hard, he will make us run extra laps around the field.  He threatens us with something that we don’t want to do to inspire us to practice our hardest.

Caroline:  So that is why the Gospel words of Jesus include a good balance of positive things but also some negative warnings.

Chike:  I guess we just have to admit that as people we need both positive affirmation and negative warnings.

Arinze:  We can learn good behavior by being afraid of what could go wrong; and we can learn good behavior by knowing what rewards we can gain.

Caroline: Personally, I like to be motivated by chocolate cake, but sometimes I need to be frighten by the bad things that might happen if I do not do my best.

Chike:  I guess we just have to learn to be wise because if we are wise we might make better decisions.

Arinze:  Jesus told his friends that they need to learn how to read signs in life.  If you see smoke, then you know there is fire.  By reading the sign then you know how to respond to danger.

Caroline:  So if we are wise we can learn how to prevent and avoid bad things. 

Chike:  I think that Jesus was saying that there are lots of bad things that can happen in life.   And we should observe these bad things.  And we should make decisions to avoid bad things.

Arinze:  But don’t you think that the big threat of Jesus was when he said that we would have stand someday before the Son of Man.  Why do we have to live in fear about some final judgment?

Caroline:  That is one way to look at it but remember Jesus was talking to his friends.  So if you know the Judge and if the Judge is your friend, do you fear that your friend would judge you harshly?

Chike:  Yes, if your friend is the Judge, your friend might also compliment you on the good things that you have done.   So we only have to fear the Judge if we have not been friends with the Judge.

Arinze:  So Advent does not have to be a season of gloom and doom.

Caroline:  No, we should use Advent and every season as time to get to know Christ as both our friend and Judge.  As our friend and Judge, Jesus is one who wants us to get better and he will help us get better and he will also forgive us when we are not perfect.

Chike:  So this is the secret to happy Advent.

Arinze:  And what is that?

Chike:  Get to know Jesus Christ as your friend and judge in this life and then you will not have to fear the Son of Man as your judge at the end of your life.

Caroline: That’s a great way to have a good Advent season in preparation for Christmas.

Arinze:  So, people of St. John’s; get to know Jesus Christ as your friend now and then you will not fear him as the Son of Man and your Judge.  Sounds like good advice.

Caroline: Let us all spend extra time with Jesus as our friend during this season of Advent.  Amen.